Wednesday, June 08, 2005

Obedience, not legalism

Debra at As I See it Now reflects on how Christian obedience has unjustly developed a bad reputation among some Christians as being "legalism":

Not legalism--no... no... no! True excellence, true obedience is not legalism and it grieves me lately how often some excellence is immediately hushed and harshly, wrongly labeled legalism (but that's another post). Rather, obedience and real excellence are a deep, deep desire from the heart to serve God.... to do what He tells you, even if no one else is doing that one thing... It's a response to a heart-change only an excellent God could make in a woman or man.

Perhaps the most counter-intuitive lesson of Christian discipleship is that good works don't save us. Once we grasp that truth, however, we are under a calling of obedience to God. The deep desire to live a life of obedience, as Debra suggests, is a joy of discipleship.

2 Comments:

Blogger Debra said...

Hi Milton! I just meandered over here this afternoon and imagine my surprise to see this
quote...Thanks! Someday when I become brave, I will write another post about legalism vs. obedience and will give much more specific details...But I'm not yet that brave--ha! :) Thanks again... Debra

1:23 PM, June 09, 2005  
Blogger Milton Stanley said...

You're quite welcome, Debra. I meant to send you a trackback ping, but I must have overlooked it during my mad rush to blog during 30-minute time intervals on the public library's computers! Peace. I'd love to see what you do write when you become brave enough. Peace.

9:42 PM, June 09, 2005  

Post a Comment

<< Home